Background: It has long been hypothesized that increasing heritability with age of cognitive and educational performance is partly attributable to evocative gene-environment correlation. However, this hypothesis has not been widely tested.
Methods: We addressed this gap by examining whether children's education polygenic scores (PGS) were associated with maternal self-reported positive and literacy-focused parenting when children were 5 years old, and if evoked parenting differences mediated genetic effects on children's educational outcomes (mother-reported at 6-8 years of age), while controlling for parental PGS.
Research is needed to elucidate the underlying mechanisms that link adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and internalizing symptomatology in women. In the present study, we conducted a systematic review to assess whether intimate partner violence (IPV) mediated the association between ACEs and internalizing symptomatology in women. We utilized a novel statistical technique-meta-analytic structural equation modelling (MASEM)-to examine the path model by amalgamating effect sizes across all studies, thereby combining both meta-analytic and structural equation modelling approaches.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper reports on Adult Attachment Interviews (AAIs) obtained from a low-risk sample of 51 pregnant women expecting their first child who were interviewed again when the child was five years of age. This is the first report of test-retest results that extends over five years that includes the transition to motherhood. Results suggest significant levels of continuity at the level of AAI classifications with three-way stability being 90% and two-way stability being 88%.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChild Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health
March 2025
Background: Adolescence is a developmental period during which an estimated 75% of mental health problems emerge (Solmi et al. in Mol Psychiat 27:281-295, 2022). This paper reports a feasibility study of a novel indicated, preventative, transdiagnostic, school-based intervention: Building Resilience Through Socioemotional Training (ReSET).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Oxytocin (OT) plays pivotal roles in stress regulation, mother-infant bonding, and breastfeeding, all of which are adversely impacted by postnatal depression (PND). In a double-blind, randomized controlled trial, we assessed endogenous OT concentrations first in the breast milk of new mothers at baseline, and second following the administration of exogenous OT compared to a placebo delivered via a nasal spray.
Method: Participants were mothers (N = 62, aged 23-42 years) and their infants (aged 3-9 months).
This study investigated the influence of parents' Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) responses prior to the birth of a first child, on self-reported mental health symptoms of the first-born child in mid-adolescence. The sample comprised 51 first-born children aged 16 years, their mothers and fathers from a low-risk community urban sample, White, British and 70% middle class. Mothers' responses to the AAI were the strongest predictor of their adolescent children's self-reported mental health symptoms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInvolving young people with lived experience in youth mental health research is important. In recognition of the value of collaborating with experts by experience, international funders are increasingly mandating that mental health research is developed by teams that include individuals from the population of study. Yet, research into how Patient Public Involvement, specifically co-production and co-design, is implemented in youth mental health research is limited to date.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Interpersonal outcomes and mental health problems are closely associated. However, their reciprocal influence has not been directly examined while considering the temporal stability of these constructs, as well as shared and unique variance associated with internalising, externalising and attention problems. Using random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM), we tested the hypotheses that negative bidirectional associations at the between-person and negative cross-lagged effects at the within-person level would emerge between interpersonal outcomes (friendship quality and perceived popularity) and mental health problems (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAttentional control is key to the development of executive functions. Previous research indicates that individual differences in attentional control behaviour may be stable from 6 months. Here, we analyse electroencephalogram data collected from 59 6-month-olds to gain insights into the neural processes underlying attentional control in infancy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: Secondary trauma is recognised as one of the negative effects for professionals working with people that have experienced trauma. Research has demonstrated secondary trauma in foster carers but little research has explored trauma symptoms within adoptive parents, facing the emotional impact of parenting a child with adverse early experiences. This study aimed to document the rates of primary and secondary trauma symptoms in adoptive parents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study examined gene-environment correlation (rGE) in intellectual and academic development in 561 U.S.-based adoptees (57% male; 56% non-Latinx White, 19% multiracial, 13% Black or African American, 11% Latinx) and their birth and adoptive parents between 2003 and 2017.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly motor skills may be important early markers of neurodevelopmental conditions or predictors of their later onset. To explore this, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of infant motor skill assessments in those who go on to gain a clinical diagnosis of autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), schizophrenia, language conditions, tic disorders, or developmental coordination disorder (DCD). In total, 63 articles met inclusion criteria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Children exposed to trauma are vulnerable to developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other adverse mental health outcomes. In low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), children are at increased risk of exposure to severe trauma and co-occurring adversities. However, relative to high-income countries, there is limited evidence of the factors that predict good versus poor psychological recovery following trauma exposure in LMIC children, and the role of caregiver support in these high-adversity communities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMary Main's written work profoundly changed the direction of attachment research through her publications and through her teachings. The current study describes the scientific impact of her her published and unpublished work. We identified 85 such works.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe current meta-analysis examined the mediating role of sensitive-responsive parenting in the relationship between depression in mothers and internalizing and externalizing behavior in children. A systematic review of the path of maternal sensitive responsiveness to child psychopathology identified eligible studies. Meta-analytic structural equation modelling (MASEM) allowed for the systematic examination of the magnitude of the indirect effect across 68 studies ( = 15,579) for internalizing and 92 studies ( = 26,218) for externalizing psychopathology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCogn Affect Behav Neurosci
October 2024
In many everyday decisions, individuals choose between trialling something novel or something they know well. Deciding when to try a new option or stick with an option that is already known to you, known as the "explore/exploit" dilemma, is an important feature of cognition that characterises a range of decision-making contexts encountered by humans. Recent evidence has suggested preferences in explore/exploit biases are associated with psychopathology, although this has typically been examined within individual disorders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The role of negative parenting in the development of callous-unemotional (CU) traits remains unclear. Both negative parenting and CU traits are influenced by genetic and environmental factors. The authors used genetically informed longitudinal cross-lagged models to examine the extent to which reciprocal effects between negative parenting and children's CU traits in mid-to-late childhood are genetic versus environmental in origin.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrecision health refers to the use of individualised biomarkers or predictive models to provide more tailored information about an individual's likely prognosis. For child psychiatry and psychology, we argue that this approach requires a focus on neurocognitive measures collected in early life and at large scale. However, the large sample sizes necessary to uncover individual-level predictors are currently rare in studies of neurodevelopmental conditions in early childhood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Child Psychol Psychiatry
April 2024
Researchers continue to count the short- and longer-term mental health costs for children and adolescents of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated exceptional restrictions imposed by governments on their lives in an attempt to control the pandemic and its impacts. Despite being at low risk of serious physical illness from COVID-19 themselves, some studies have reported a decline in the mental health of many young people during the pandemic. Some have suggested that this could even create a risk for long-term morbidity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Adolescence is a period of heightened vulnerability to developing mental health problems, and rates of mental health disorder in this age group have increased in the last decade. Preventing mental health problems developing before they become entrenched, particularly in adolescents who are at high risk, is an important research and clinical target. Here, we report the protocol for the trial of the 'Building Resilience through Socioemotional Training' (ReSET) intervention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Fine motor skills are heritable and comprise important milestones in development, and some evidence suggests that impairments in fine motor skills are associated with neurodevelopmental conditions, psychiatric disorders, and poor educational outcomes.
Methods: In a preregistered study of 9625 preschool children from TEDS (Twins Early Development Study), fine motor assessments (drawing, block building, folding, and questionnaires) were conducted at 2, 3, and 4 years of age. A cross-age fine motor score was derived using principal component analysis.
Parenting and children's temperament are important influences on language development. However, temperament may reflect prior parenting, and parenting effects may reflect genes common to parents and children. In 561 U.
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